Exploring Nature from Country to City (A Graphic Novel)
April 1, 2022
K-Gr 3-Best friends Mole and Vole live in a forest and look for new sights every day for Mole to draw in their nature journal. They venture into the moving boxes of a nearby human family, who are Black, and accidentally move with them to a large city. The change of setting surprises the pair, who quickly establish new homes and pair up to explore the urban environment, including streets, trees, and a community garden. They form an Adventurers Club of like-minded animals to observe flora and fauna, while avoiding predators such as hawks and owls. Hu's artwork conveys the fun, wonder, and fear the adventurers experience. Full spreads and pages of three to four panels each are easy to follow, whether wandering around a neighborhood or introducing a new friend. Activities in the back include guides for drawing, nature journals, community gardens, decorating windows to help birds, raising cats, and composting. VERDICT Readers will feel compelled to start their own journals, gardens, and hikes thanks to these outdoorsy animal friends.-Thomas Maluck
Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 6, 2022
Every day and sometimes at night, excitable Vole surprises neighbor Mole with a wake-up call: “TIME FOR ADVENTURE!!” Quieter, more risk-averse Mole gamely accompanies danger-seeking Vole, documenting their days in a sketchbook. When the pair inadvertently hitches a one-way ride to a city with nearby human residents, portrayed as Black, they make the best of the surprising transition, exploring the urban wilderness in bite-size adventures with dialogue by Mosco that smoothly integrates nature facts. Hu’s animal character designs are welcoming and friendly, while changing viewpoints—including cutaways of Mole’s underground home, images of sketchbook pages, and aerial views of the adventurers’ rambles—keep the pages interesting in this light comic centering a gentle animal fellowship, a human child’s move from city to country, and a view of the natural world’s variations. Back matter includes tips for drawing, journaling, and green living. Ages 4–8.
June 1, 2022
Two animal friends learn about the great outdoors in the city and country and form the Adventurers Club. Mole and Vole are opposites. Mole is tentative, cautious, and artistic; Vole craves danger and adventures. But while the duo's friendship will feel familiar to readers of Elephant and Piggie and Frog and Toad, it's not as well developed as those others, the dialogue often feels forced, and the true facts shared about animals encountered can feel didactic. In five chapters, the two share adventures near their country homes, inside a human home on a rainy day, and in the city after Vole's curiosity lands the two in a moving box. Large panels in each chapter allow those new to graphic novels to follow along, and a final double-page spread in most summarizes the adventure in Mole's sketchings. In between, an overhead view with a colored dotted line and multiple sightings of the adventurers, whose numbers swell to five club members, shows their route and the many things they spy. In the background is the subplot of a Black family's move to the city and the initial loneliness and first friendship of their little girl. While body language and facial expressions are clear for most of the anthropomorphized animals, young children may have trouble with Vole; her heavy-lined eyebrows frequently make her look angry when she is meant to feel determined or excited. Rather tame animal adventures for new graphic-novel readers. (how-to's: draw Mole and Vole, keep a nature journal, join a community garden, stop birds from hitting windows, be a good cat owner, compost at home; about the creators) (Graphic fiction. 5-9)
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September 1, 2022
Country dwellers Mole and Vole are the stars of this engaging and enjoyable nature-themed graphic novel told in five chapters, or "expeditions." "Expedition #1: Forest Adventure" introduces readers to the creatures' natural environs and their primary character traits (Mole = excitable; Vole = more cautious). "Expedition #2: House Adventure" brings them inside a nearby cabin where they are mistakenly packed into moving boxes. They arrive (unbeknownst to the humans) in a city where the rest of the expeditions take place. With some trepidation, but with appetites for adventure, Mole and Vole set out at various times throughout the day and night. They encounter such familiar city creatures as pigeons, raccoons, and opossums, along with others such as a black-crowned night heron, a DeKay's brown snake, and many more examples of flora and fauna, all identified in clear illustrations with eye-pleasing earth-tone hues and including occasional, informative entries from Mole's sketchbook. Throughout, Vole insists on having seen a lion, a narrative thread that offers in-the-know humor for readers and ties in with a theme of new friendships -- for animals and humans alike. Elissa Gershowitz
(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
July 1, 2022
Color design by Ashanti Fortson. Country dwellers Mole and Vole are the stars of this engaging and enjoyable nature-themed graphic novel told in five chapters, or "expeditions." "Expedition #1: Forest Adventure" introduces readers to the creatures' natural environs and their primary character traits (Mole = excitable; Vole = more cautious). "Expedition #2: House Adventure" brings them inside a nearby cabin where they are mistakenly packed into moving boxes. They arrive (unbeknownst to the humans) in a city where the rest of the expeditions take place. With some trepidation, but with appetites for adventure, Mole and Vole set out at various times throughout the day and night. They encounter such familiar city creatures as pigeons, raccoons, and opossums, along with others such as a black-crowned night heron, a DeKay's brown snake, and many more examples of flora and fauna, all identified in clear illustrations with eye-pleasing earth-tone hues and including occasional, informative entries from Mole's sketchbook. Throughout, Vole insists on having seen a lion, a narrative thread that offers in-the-know humor for readers and ties in with a theme of new friendships -- for animals and humans alike.
(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)